A New Day on the Colorado
A decades-long dispute has eased with the signing of the Seven States Agreement to better manage the Colorado River

By Garry Hofer

Sometimes, simple problems require complex solutions.

At their core, troubles surrounding the Colorado River are straightforward. Eric Kuhn, general manager of the Colorado River Water Conservation District, summed it up at an August 2006 meeting in Breckenridge, Colorado: “The problem is simple, with nine million acre-feet a year [going] in and 10 million acre-feet a year out, the system will ultimately go bankrupt or, in our case, Lake Mead will empty.”

However, the solution to this problem has eluded federal and state officials, and the states that have relied on the river and its reservoirs for their urban and agricultural water supplies, recreation and power generation for decades.

As the late water author Marc Reisner noted, the Colorado River carries the infamous distinction of being the most litigated river in the world.

In the shadow of this contentious history, and in the wake of a warning from former U.S. Interior Secretary Gale Norton that “if you don't fix it, I'm going to fix it for you [with potential shortages in 2008],” the states hunkered down, negotiated, drafted and signed the Seven States Water Management Agreement in April 2007 that just may be the most significant breakthrough since the Colorado River Compact of 1922.

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